Hog farmers in Saskatchewan will be offered early access to their expected 2008 AgriStability payout under a Targeted Advance Payment (TAP) program announced Thursday.
Eligible producers will be contacted “soon” with information on the amounts of their advances and how to receive those payments, the federal agriculture department said in a release.
The 2008 program announcement comes about two months after Saskatchewan hog farmers went public with notices received from the agriculture income stabilization (CAIS) office, saying the farmers’ TAPs from the 2007 AgriStability program were going to be much less than or none of what the office had originally informed them they would receive.
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Producer group Sask Pork wrote in a release in late January that within days of receiving a first communication earlier that month on their 2007 TAPs, “nearly all producers were subsequently informed they would be receiving a substantially reduced payment, and in many cases ‘zero’ and that the previously calculated payments were incorrect.”
Sask Pork at the time called for 2008 interim payment applications to be made “immediately” available to hog farmers, and for the program payment caps that denied funding to “over half” of Saskatchewan’s hog industry to be removed.
As was the case with the 2007 TAP, the 2008 TAP announced Thursday will be based on 60 per cent of a farmer’s estimated 2008 AgriStability payment — a move the department said is meant to reduce the risk of an overpayment, which the federal CAIS office would then have to recoup from the farmer.
“These targeted advances allow producers to access a portion of their AgriStability payment now — when they need it the most,” Saskatchewan Agriculture Minister Bob Bjornerud said in the federal government’s release.
“This announcement will give Saskatchewan hog producers access to the support they need to weather the current storm and adjust to new market realities,” federal Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz said in the same release.
